The First Dark Exchange: Idolatry

For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him
as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their
speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing
to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the
incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and
of birds and four-footed animals and crawling
creatures.

Exchanging the Glory of God for Images

For three weeks now we are going to be looking at two dark
exchanges that characterize fallen sinful man, apart from grace.
The first dark exchange is the exchange of the glory of God for the
glory of images of man and animals. Call it idolatry. We will talk
about that this morning. The second dark exchange is the exchange
of sexual relations with the opposite sex for sexual relations with
the same sex. We call that homosexuality. That is what we will talk
about for the next two weeks, from verses 24–27. (Parents of small
children, use wisdom in deciding if you want to make this a
teaching time for them about homosexuality. The text and the issues
are painful and blunt.)

Today our focus is on verses 21–23 and the first dark exchange
that characterizes fallen human culture, idolatry. Remember the
context: “God’s wrath is being revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the
truth in unrighteousness” (v. 18) The truth that they suppress is a
universally revealed truth — a truth revealed in what God has made;
namely, the truth of his “eternal power and divine nature” (v.
20). In suppressing the truth, verse 21 says, people “do not
glorify Him as God or give thanks.” Therefore they are without
excuse against God’s wrath. God’s wrath is just because they have
the knowledge and they don’t live it. They suppress it.

Or, to put it differently, based on today’s text: People behold
and know the glory of God offered them for their joy and their
trust, and they exchange it for images. This response is the same
suppressing and the same failure to glorify and thank that we have
seen in the last two messages from this paragraph.

So what I want to do today is to focus our attention on this
dark exchange to see what Paul says about it. And I am sure that
the reason he says anything about it is not to titillate our
intellectual interest, but to move us to flee from it with all our
might and do all we can to help others escape who are caught in
this dreadful darkness of idolatry — which pervades both the
primitive cultures and the most advanced technical cultures of the
modern world.

Exchanging God for Pitiful Substitutes

I have at least four observations from this text that I think we
should make. But first let me make sure you see the exchange itself
in verse 23: “[They] exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God
for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and
four-footed animals and crawling creatures.” Note well: The
exchange is of the glory of God for a pitiful substitute.

Now this reality itself needs to be stressed. We talk a lot about the
glory of God at Bethlehem. It is our favorite theme. We believe
it is the great unifying reality of the Bible and the universe.
All is springing from and flowing toward the glory of God. All that
is, is for the glory of God. The ultimate value in the universe is
the glory of God, not the soul of man. It is important then for a
church like ours to see texts like this truth very clearly so that we
will realize that this theme, this emphasis, this value is not being
laid on the Bible. It is coming from the Bible.

What we see here is that two times in this passage Paul says
that the fundamental, bottom-line, root problem with the human race
has to do with what we make of the glory of God. In verse 21 Paul
says, “Even though they knew God, they did not honor him
[literally: glorify him] as God.” That is the fundamental problem
with the human race. We do not acknowledge, value, treasure, savor,
honor, or make much of the greatest value in the universe: the
glory of God. That is our wickedness and our disease and our great
mutiny against God.

And then in verse 23 Paul puts it another way: “we exchange the
glory of the incorruptible God for an image.” So the great problem
of the universe concerns what humans are making of the glory of
God. This reality is the issue of your life and this culture and this
country and this century and every century, and the issue of all
the nations of the world. When Paul reaches to describe the depths
of man’s sinful condition under the wrath of God, he does not first
deal with the sexual sins of verses 24–27 or the list of 21 sins in
verses 29–31. He deals first with the fundamental problem: What do
we make of the glory of God? Do we magnify it by treasuring it above
all things? Or do we belittle it by preferring other things and
exchanging it for created things?

Observations About This Dark Exchange

So it is a huge issue and I pray that as we make these four
observations about this dark exchange, God will awaken in us a new
love and a new reverence for his glory.

1. This dark exchange of God’s glory for images is accompanied
by futile speculations.

Verse 21: “Even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as
God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations
[or their thoughts].” Futile here means empty, vain, useless. God
gave human beings minds with the capacity to reason and imagine and
speculate and think and ponder and meditate. Why? So that we might
use them to know God and to think about him and speak of him and
praise him and devise things in the world which would honor
him.

We see this purpose vividly in the story of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4.
He uses his mind and might to build Babylon, then says, “Is not
this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power!” (v. 30).
God was so displeased with his pride and his failure to use his
mind to acknowledge God that “he was driven from among men, and ate
grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till
his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like
birds’ claws” (v. 33).

Then come the key words: “At the end of the days I,
Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven [that is, to God], and my
reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High and praised and
honored him who lives forever” (v. 34). When your eyes are Godward, your
reason returns. Why? Because your mind was made for God. And when
Nebuchadnezzar’s reason returns, he uses it as God intended: “He
blessed and praised and glorified the One who lives for ever” (v. 34).

This reality is why Paul says that all speculations and thinking are
futile when God is not glorified and thanked, but rather exchanged
for images. Futility means vain, empty, useless — and that is what
the mind becomes when it is no longer used to know God and love God
and treasure and honor God. It doesn’t matter if you are the most
brilliant scientist or artist or engineer. Everything you do with
your mind, minus God, is futile and empty and vain. First Corinthians
3:20 says, “The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are
useless.”

Don’t exchange God for other things. All your thinking will
become futile and empty and have no lasting significance.

2. The exchange of God’s glory for images is accompanied by
darkness of heart.

Verse 21: “They became futile in their speculations, and their
foolish heart was darkened.” Why is the heart darkened when people
exchange the glory of God for other things? The answer is that the
only light in the universe that can fill the heart with light is
the glory of God.

Compare physical light with spiritual light, which is what Jesus
did in Matthew 6:22. Jesus said there, “The eye is the lamp of the
body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of
light.” In other words, there is no light-producing element in the
body; all light comes from outside; the eye must be good if any of
this light is to get into the body and let the body see.

So it is with the heart and the spiritual light which God
designed to fill it. There is no light-producing element in the
heart. All light comes from outside; namely, from the glory of God.
(Not from the sun — we are not talking about physical light, but
spiritual light.) Jesus is the spiritual light of the world (John
8:12) because “he is the glory as of the only begotten from the
Father” (John 1:14). Paul prays that the “eyes of your hearts would
be enlightened” because only the prayer-hearing God can enlighten
the heart (Ephesians 1:18). And in 2 Corinthians 4:6, Paul says,
“God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who
has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the
glory of God in the face of Christ.”

The only light in the universe that can bring light to the heart
is the glory of God. If we exchange it for other things, we will
live in darkness, no matter how brilliant we are or how many fires
we may build or candles we may light.

3. The exchange of God’s glory for other things is always felt
to be wise by those who make the exchange.

Verse 22: “Professing to be wise, they became fools.” To the
natural man, apart from grace and darkened in heart, nothing seems
more obvious than that it is more wise to design your own god than
to take what you are given. What could be more obviously wise, he
says, than to make your own god? The advantages abound: It shows
that you are resourceful and that you are creative and intelligent.
All
of that clearly makes your ego feel good. But best of all,
making your own god makes you independent and keeps you in control.
You pull the strings. In other words, making your own god lets you
be god. And what could be wiser than the choice to be god?

Satan said to Eve in the garden, “‘God knows that in the day you
eat from [the forbidden tree], your eyes will be opened, and you
will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ When the woman saw that
the tree . . . was desirable to make one wise [Romans 1:22!], she
took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with
her, and he ate” (Genesis 3:5–6). That is the way it was from the
beginning and still is. If you want to assume the role of God in
governing your life, you will perceive this dark exchange —
idolatry — as the wisest thing in the world.

4. However, Paul says, at the end of verse 22, “Professing to
be wise, they became fools” — the dark exchange is foolish, even if
it looks wise.

That is the fourth observation about the dark exchange of God’s
glory for other things. It is foolish to exchange God for images.
It is foolish to create your own god or be your own god. It is
foolish to lean on futile speculations and to walk in darkness.

Why? Why is this dark exchange of God for images so foolish?
Paul gives at least three answers in verse 23, and we will close by
looking at two of them (in verse 23) and save the third for next
week (in verses 24–27). My prayer is that this response will stir you up to
fight against this dark exchange in your own heart, and that you
will help other people do the same (which is what evangelism and
small groups are about).

4.1. First, Paul shows that the exchange is
foolish by emphasizing the infinite difference in value between
what you trade away and what you get in its place. The glory of God
is of infinite value and what you get in the exchange is
infinitesimally small by comparison.

Look how he shows this truth in verse 23: In their folly they “exchanged
the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of
corruptible man.” Literally it reads: “They exchanged the glory of
the incorruptible God for a likeness of an image of corruptible
man.” Now notice: Man himself is already, according to Genesis
1:27, an image of God and not God. But that is not what the
exchange of God gets. No, not even that. Rather it is for an image
of man. No, not even that. It is for “a likeness of an image of
man” who is himself an image.

Do you see what Paul is doing by piling up these words? He
is emphasizing the infinite difference in value between the real
and the copy. And he does it by saying: When you make this exchange
— even for the best thing you can think of; namely, man — yourself (not to mention animals!), you are bartering God for the image of
an image of an image. You sell the original masterpiece for a copy
of a copy of a copy.

We live in a dying and sick culture where you will hear and read
the boast — not the shameful confession, but the boast — that “image
is everything.” Well, over against that, the Bible says, the glory
of God is everything, and to exchange him for anything is to lose
the greatest treasure in the world for an image of an image of an
image. That is futile and dark and foolish. Flee from it. Rescue
people from it. Don’t be afraid to name it.

4.2. The second way Paul shows that this dark
exchange is foolish is by observing that the glory of God is
incorruptible and man is corruptible.

Verse 23: “They exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for
a likeness of an image of corruptible man.”

If you value other things more than God, if your life is really
driven by another value, then you exchange the imperishable for the
perishable. You trade the diamond for a peach forgotten at the back
of the refrigerator. You trade the ruby for a banana sitting in the
sun. You trade a bar of gold for a bolt rusting in the rain.

Let’s do the opposite, along with the apostle Paul. Let’s count
everything else as rubbish that we might gain Christ (Philippians 3:8). Let the world
call it folly. It is not. Let’s be like Secretary of State William
Seward in 1867 who helped America buy Alaska from the Russians for
$7,200,000. O, the ridicule of the people: “Seward’s folly,” they
called it. Exchanging seven million dollars for ice!

Well in the last 130 years Alaska has yielded billions upon
billions of dollars in resources to America. Things are not what
they seem. I plead with you. Open your eyes. And do not exchange
your God for anything. Exchange everything for him.

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books.

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